Celebrate In and Out of Season

My family is not particularly large however, families of any size often face the crunch of celebrating the seasonal winter holidays with multiple different extended branches of friends and relatives during the last couple of weeks of the year and up to New Year’s Day.  It’s not unusual to face the dilemma of getting invited to more than one place at the same time and wishing you could split yourself in two.   And for this reason, a group of my family members have taken on the tradition of gathering together earlier in the month of December to celebrate before the full crazy rush of the holiday is underway, or early in the New Year after the holiday season has ended.  This way we can choose different places each year that can be reached without the need to purchase peak rate airfares and provides us an opportunity to relax, recreate and recharge for a few days.  This also creates more open scheduling windows during the core of the holidays and prolongs the length and spirit of the holiday season overall.   This year we chose to gather in a tropical beach location and effectively dodged the arctic blast that enveloped a wide range of the U.S. this month.  But, then again if we had chosen to gather in a snowy winter wonderland locale this year we would have hit the mark perfectly, as well!  Just enjoy the season with those you care about and love – wherever you are.

Happy Holidays to All!

Chef Kelly